Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



. F5 



INGERSOLL ANSWERED. 



7-i. 



df^***^ fl. srl^tMA" , 



*4 CU+C~> 



"OP \ RIGHTED. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
D. J. Gallagher & Co., Printers, 420 Library Sireet. 

1889. 






INGERSOLL ANSWERED. 



Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll : 

Dear Sir : — You have said a great deal against re- 
ligion, Christianity, and the church ; and the mistake you 
make is in confusing the three. You condemn all religion, 
all Christianity, and the whole church,, and you use the 
three terms interchangeably as if each described the same 
idea as the others. This is the fallacy that runs through 
all your arguments. Those three words have very different 
meanings, and if we would understand either history or 
religion we must carefully distinguish between them. 

Let us begin with religion. You believe it to be a delu- 
sion, an invention of man, a cruelty, a check on progress ; 
and when you say this I think you are confusing religion 
with the churches. The churches have often been cruel 
and wrong and a check on progress, and are the inventions 
of man. But a church is not religion ; a church is simply 
a human method of administering religion. 

Consider religion separate from the churches. Is it not 
a fact of consciousness, a necessary part of mental structure, 
a law of nature ? Was there ever a nation or a tribe of 
men that had not a religion of some sort ? As far back as 
you can trace history you can trace religions. Brahminism, 
Buddhism, the Persian religion of Zoroaster and the won- 
derful religion of Egypt are doubtless familiar to your 
studies. All these faiths contained a belief in a God or 

(3) 



gods of some sort, in existence after death and in rewards 
for trie good and punishments for the wicked. Of course 
they contained many other doctrines, some of them very 
foolish and some of them very cruel ; but they all con- 
tained, as a basis, belief in spiritual powers superior to man 
and belief in immortality. No matter what absurdities the 
course of years may add, immortality and spiritual powers 
form the ground-work of every religion. Neither the re- 
ligion nor the absurdities could exist without the idea of 
immortality and a God . Men of science have of late years 
investigated the religious instincts of savages, and find 
them all believing in existence after death and in unseen 
spirits which govern the world. It is impossible to find a 
race of human beings that is destitute of religion. 

Why is religion so universal ? Because every individual 
works it out from the great facts of life, and death, and his 
own consciousness. Every man is conscious of having a 
spirit ; something that can love, hate, remember, think, 
hope, and imagine, yet cannot be touched or seen, some- 
thing which is independent of the body and independent of 
the body's death. You can talk about delusions and ma- 
terialism as much as you please ; but every man from the 
savage to the sage has this innate consciousness of an im- 
mortal spirit, and will continue to have it in spite of all 
you say. The existence of this consciousness in all man- 
kind is a fact which cannot be explained away any more 
than you can explain away the existence of the Rocky 
Mountains or the law of gravitation. It is a fact of our 
nature just as love, reason, and memory are facts of our 
nature. 

There is another reason why religion is universal. All 
men believe in cause and effect. Our minds are so con- 
stituted that we must believe that everything has a cause. 
When, therefore, men look upon the universe and them- 
selves, they cannot avoid the conclusion that there must 
have been a cause of all they see, and they worship that 



cause as God. And when they see that they have a religi- 
ous instinct which points to a God and immortality, they 
think that it must have been implanted in them for a rea- 
son, and that its intimations are probably true. There is 
no use in saying that it is impossible to be certain that 
there is a God, impossible to demonstrate His existence. 
The mass of mankind do not require certainty of knowl- 
edge. Probability is enough. 

All religion rests on probability; and this is a point which 
you continually ignore. You demand that everything in 
religion should be made certain, demonstrated, proved be- 
yond a reasonable doubt. This cannot be done, never has 
been done, and never will be done. The clergy and the 
churches, from the nature of their position and the de- 
mands made upon them, always profess that their particu- 
lar form of belief is sure. But the words that they use 
belie their assertion. They constantly speak of religion 
as a faith, a hope ; and religion is generally called a faith, 
a hope. Both of these words imply doubt. What we 
are sure of, we know. What we have doubt about, we hope, 
for and have faith in. When we can see and touch a tree 
we do not say that we hope it is in existence, and that it is 
a tree, for we are sure that it is, we know that it is. But 
we may say that we hope to-morrow will be a clear day, 
or that we have faith that our friend who promised to join 
us will come. The fact that religion cannot be demon- 
strated, but that every advocate of it feels compelled to 
profess that he has demonstrated it, explains a great deal 
that is curious in theology. It certainly accounts for the 
endlessness as well as the bitterness of controversy ; it 
shows how natural it is that sects should arise, and how 
necessary they are : and, if kept in mind, it should help 
to a more intelligent treatment of all questions of re- 
ligion. 

The probabilities favor religion. Men when left to them- 
selves always build up a religion. Suppose all the religions 



of the world to be forgotten, sweep away all memories of 
churches, priests and prayers ; take any ten men and start 
them afresh in the desert, and I venture to say that within 
a few years they will have evolved a religion from the facts 
of nature and their own consciousness. This religious in- 
stinct which is forever appearing in man is just as much a 
fact as light or heat, or the ground, or the trees. The 
metaphysicians certainly tell us that the religious in- 
stinct is part of every man's mind, part of the ideal side of 
our nature, and that every man is born with it. The re- 
ligious instinct is as much a natural part of every man as 
his lungs ; and we are as likely to have a race of men with- 
out lungs, as a race of men without religion. Such a 
stupendous fact of nature cannot be dismissed by saying 
that it is a delusion, an invention of man. 

Do you really object to this religious instinct ? Do you 
really think it monstrous and wicked ? Do you really think 
it interferes with liberty, and causes unhappiness ? I grant 
you that men have made outrageous uses of it ; that they 
have built upon it churches which deserve all the indigna- 
tion that your generous heart can feel and your powerful 
mind express. But let us distinguish between the thing 
itself and the abuse of it : between a fact of nature and the 
use made of it by man. 

Whether you object to religion or not, it is here to stay. 
Neither you nor I, nor all the scientific investigation in the 
world, nor all the infidels and athiests can destroy it, or 
even materially lessen it. You can no more persuade the 
religious instinct out of men than you can persuade them 
not to breathe. When you fight against religion you 
are fighting against a fact which is as old as the human 
heart, and more steadfast than the hills. Indeed, the at- 
tacks on religion tend to develop and increase it. Doctrines 
or dogmas may be here and there overthrown, but in the 
end men are brought face to face with the great questions 
of life, death and a conscious spirit, and faith starts up 



again as fresh as at the beginning. The way to convert an 
agnostic is to encourage his agnosticism. Let him run it 
through ; let him prove that nothing can be known ; that 
there is no God to worship, no future life to hope for, and 
let him face that situation for awhile and see how he likes 
it. The chances are that he will react. 

There are few permanent agnostics. There never was a 
nation of agnostics, or a tribe of agnostics, or even a vil- 
lage of them. We find only individual agnostics here and 
there ; and very valuable critics they make ; they will not, 
I think, be damned for their lack of belief. But it is very 
difficult for an individual to hold to agnosticism all through 
his life. Sooner or later he begins to feel about for something 
positive ; some point on which to build a hope, and you 
yourself already show signs of this. Atheism and agnos- 
ticism are forms of growth, methods of study by which 
certain honest minds work out the one tremenduous problem 
of the world. They also seem to be a contrivance of nature 
for getting rid of corruption, old skin, and useless horns. 
But the normal state of man is belief in a future life and 
worship of a God. 

The clergymen who call you a monster and a destroyer 
of religion, have very little confidence in their faith. They 
should not be so easily scared ; for, with all respect for your 
ability, I believe you are as unable to injure religion as you 
are to injure the Mississippi river, or the stars. Statistics 
tell us that after seventy years of free thought and con- 
troversy in this country, the number of communicants of 
the churches has increased. They are more numerous in 
proportion to the population than they were seventy or 
eighty years ago. 

Religion, in the sense in which we are now using the 
word, is a great good. How can you deny it? It is 
idealism/ it lifts men out of themselves; it inspires them 
with enthusiasm, and it stimulates their morality. Here is 
another fact for us; for, like you, I ^love facts. Religion 



undoubtedly has a great influence on morals. Is not this a 
fact established by general experience, and by your own ? 
I agree with you that certain churches have often had a 
most disastrous effect on morals. But has religion, ha3 
belief in God and immortality ever had any injurious effect, 
and must it not, in the nature of things, have a good effect ? 
Suppose you could really persuade people that there was no 
hereafter, would you not have cut away a large part of the 
incentive to morality ? Set aside for the moment all doc- 
trines and all the doings of churches, and consider that one 
idea of immortality, which is now so generally believed in 
Europe and America. Is it possible to deny that it is one 
of the best influences in our civilization? Take some of 
the other beliefs of religion, and consider them by them- 
selves. Take the belief that certain sins will be punished 
eternally. This belief has been quite generally held among 
the nations of the best civilization; and do you mean to say 
that it has not stimulated the morals of that civilization ? 
It may not be an altogether comforting belief ; but it has 
held millions and millions of the wickedly disposed in 
check, given them the habit of morality, and, in that way, 
elevated the race. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that 
the truth of eternal punishment cannot be demonstrated; 
suppose that the people who believe in it have only a prob- 
ability, or a fear, if you please, to rest upon. Does that 
make the moral effect of the belief any the less efficacious ? 

And now as to that form of religion called Christianity. 
You have fiercely attacked it; and again I think you have 
failed to make a distinction. You have failed to distin- 
guish between Christianity and the churches. I shall not 
now argue at length the truth of Christianity as a revela- 
tion. I have neither the space nor the time for that. I 
wish simply to show you that there are influences in Chris- 
tianity which must not be confounded with the churches. 

If you confined your abuse to the churches, I could, in 
great part, agree with you. Every educated man knows 



that by the twelfth century the Church of Rome had be- 
come a mass of corruption and degrading superstition. 
Boys were made bishops, and priests went from corrupt 
women to administer the sacraments. The use of relics 
and the sale of indulgences had reached such a pass that 
the religion of Europe was largely fetischism. No man 
could safely think for himself, and thousands were burnt to 
death for expressing an honest thought. Political liberty 
was crushed. No discoveries could be made in science. 
Europe was dark and dead and immoral beyond anything 
of which we can conceive. This was what a powerful 
church had done. I can go farther with you, and say that 
many of the Protestant churches which struggled to reform 
this state of affairs also made mistakes, and that many of 
their actions can be defended neither in logic nor in 
morals. 

But, granting all this, are there not other influences in 
Christianity? Granting all the harm, all the folly and 
wrong that has been done by men calling themselves 
bishops, or priests, or popes, or ministers, or clergymen, 
are there not ideas and principles in Christianity which 
have been of incalculable benefit to civilization? Noble 
ideas make their way side by side with evil ones; good and 
bad can exist at the same time, and in the same place and 
in the same person. 

The way to test the question is to take the ancient world, 
before the Christian era, and compare it to the modern 
world. 

Take the idea of the forgiveness of injuries, which is so 
well established with us that it is considered manly to for- 
give an injury. This doctrine was put into the world by 
the christians, and existed independently of all rottenness 
in the church. Previous to the christian era we find 
scarcely any traces of such an idea. The literature of the 
ancients teaches that vengeance is a sacred duty, and that 
forgiveness belongs to the weak and the cowardly. 



IO 



Take the question of suicide. In the ancient world 
suicide was honorable ; it was considered creditable to use 
it as a relief from misfortune, or even as a relief from the 
monotony of life. Nowadays suicide is treated as a crime, 
and, unless I am very much mistaken, the modern aversion 
to suicide is the result of christian teaching. It is a de- 
cided advance in morals. The man who will not kill him- 
self because he believes it right to live his life through 
and use its misfortunes to strengthen his spiritual nature, 
is, I take it, rather the superior of the ancient Roman, 

Christianity, more than any other religion, has developed 
the idea of one God, perfect in justice, morality and truth. 
All the religions that* preceded Christianity had more or 
less of the idea of one God, but it was greatly obscured 
and often completely lost in a multitude of deities and idols. 
Christianity, or at any rate its churches, have sometimes 
gone astray in this respect, and smothered God in saints 
and images. But no one can deny that Christianity is in 
the main a religion of one God. 

All the religions that preceded Christianity worshiped 
gods of more or less frailty, and often of positive im- 
morality. Christians have also made the same mistake. 
The Calvinist used to worship a God who was arbitrary and 
vindictive, and damned and saved people according to His 
whim ; and the Romanists also worshipped a God who was 
arbitrary and vindictive and had created the Holy Inquisi- 
tion to burn people when they would not believe a dogma 
they could not understand. But in the main, Christianity 
has maintained the existence of one God, who is perfect in 
justice, truth and righteousness. And what must have 
been the effect on the civilization of Burope, of a perfect 
being held up for adoration and worship for nearly two 
thousand years ? Which is more likely to be the superior, 
the man who, together with his ancestors, has believed and 
had for his ideal half immoral deities, or the man who, 
together with his ancestors has had for his ideal one alto- 
gether righteous, God ? 



II 



No other religion of the world has equaled Christianity 
In the systematic teaching of morality. What other re- 
ligion has so effectively developed the art of preaching ? 
Take the published sermons of Christendom, and leave out 
all those treating of doctrine ; take only those which deal 
with morality, and tell me where in the ancient world, or 
where outside of Christendom you will find their equals. 
Take the sermons on morality we can hear every Sunday 
in the United States. Take the celebrated preachers. I 
have no doubt you heard Spurgeon when you were in Lon- 
don ; and perhaps you heard Farrar, or Liddon, or Stanley, 
or Knox Little ; doubtless you have read somewhat of 
Charles Kingsley and of Dr. Arnold's influence at Rugby, 
and of Thomas Hughes. Are you willing to say that all 
this influence is injurious ? Take the preachers in this 
country one by one, from the greatest to the least, and in 
the case of each one answer the question, is his influence 
injurious or beneficial ? In this way you will perhaps ap- 
preciate the practical working of Christianity. 

Are you willing to say that all the teaching of morality 
for the last thousand years has been without its effect on 
civilization ? Is not the spiritual growth of mankind 
caused by this preaching just as much a fact as the check 
to progress caused by absurdity and conservatism in the 
churches, and is not the spiritual growth worth all it cost. 
We abolished slavery and saved the Union in this country 
by a frightful civil war. It would have been infinitely 
better if we could have avoided that war, the miseries of 
which cannot be numbered. But now that the war is a 
settled fact of the past, do we not say that liberty and union 
are worth all they cost. 

There never was a religion or a philosophy, or a belief of 
any kind, that equaled Christianity in the practice of 
morality, the doing of good work. No other religion has 
had an organization suitable for such work. No other re- 
ligion has made such efforts to help the poor and ignorant 



12 



and elevate their thoughts and morals. No other religion 
has established such institutions of charity and philan- 
thropy. What record have we of any work of this kind 
in the ancient world ? What men in the ancient world 
ever devoted their lives to instructing and helping the poor, 
or had churches and organizations to enable them to teach 
righteousness td all sorts and conditions of men ? Were 
the priests of Apollo or the Augurs, or the Vestal Virgins, 
or Socrates, or Epectetus ever charged with such efforts ? 
What do we know of Roman hospitals, Roman orphan 
asylums, or homes for the helpless ? It is in such works 
as these that the living force of Christianity is shown, and 
not in the dry scholastic dogmas which you always single 
out for attack. 

These works of charity which we see around us in 
every city of America and Europe are all the works 
of christians, and done in the name and under the inspi- 
ration of Christianity. If Christianity is a fraud, it is a 
most inspiring and valuable fraud. Agnostics often preach 
charity and philanthropy, but it is almost impossible to 
catch any of them in the act of practicing it. I know of 
no agnostic hospitals. I never saw an agnostic at work 
among the tenement houses ; but I think I have seen some 
christians there, and when I have seen them I never could 
see that it made much difference whether they believed in 
total depravity, or in the Trinity, or in eternal punishment, 
or in the Jehovah of the Old Testament. I am free to say 
that they were not impelled to their work by any of these 
doctrines, and that if these doctrines comprised the whole 
of Christianity, such men and such work would be un- 
known. Men of this sort and work of this sort are the result 
of the inspiration of the life and character of Christ, and 
of Christianity as an idea and a feeling, a view of the sub- 
ject which you seem utterly unable to apprehend, 

I am persuaded that you cannot maintain the proposition, 
continually implied or stated in your articles and lectures, 



13 

that Christianity has been nothing but an injury and a check 
to civilization. Did you ever consider the fact that the 
most progressive nations of the world are those that have 
adopted Christianity ? Wherever Christianity in all forms 
is freely allowed, there we find the greatest progress. No 
nations are so intensely, so fully, and so thoroughly chris- 
tian as America and England, and they lead the world in 
progress. Spain and Italy have a debased form of Christi- 
anity which opposes freedom of thought and scientific pro- 
gress, and they suffer accordingly. But even Spain and Italy 
are superior in point of progress to nations that have not 
adopted Christianity at all. The civilization within Chris- 
tendom is superior to any civilization outside of it, and 
superior to any civilization that preceded it. 

Do not these facts outweigh the fact on which you insist 
so much that the Church of Rome was the enemy of science 
and atone time succeeded in checking all scientific investi- 
gation. The Church of Rome not only succeeded in abol- 
ishing science for the time, but also succeeded in dwarfing 
the human intellect, and in creating a reign of ignorance 
and despotism that has never been equaled ; and doubtless, 
if they had a chance, the ecclesiastics of that church would 
do the same thing to-day. But granting all this, and 
granting that it was done by men who called themselves 
christians, let me ask who reformed this state of affairs. 
Unless history is altogether wrong, it was done in the 
period of time called the Reformation and done by chris- 
tians, in the name of Christianity. The main ideas of the 
Reformation were the right of private judgment and a re- 
turn to the simplicity of the early church. Political lib- 
erty was developed at the same time; it was bound up with 
the idea of religious liberty, so that in studying the history 
of the Reformation in England, it is sometimes hard to 
distinguish between the two. The christians of the Re- 
formation gradually worked out for us that liberty of 
thought and speech, that liberty of the press, and those 



14 

ideas of free government and free suffrage which you as a 
lawyer know so well. If Christianity has gone astray it 
has also been able to reform itself. 

Again I remind you that the advance accomplished by 
Christianity is just as much a fact as the corruption and 
cruelty of the churches or their absurdity in doctrine and 
dogma. You ignore one fact and state the other. I ask 
that both of them be stated . 

I ask you also if it is not a fact that Christianity has in 
general softened manners and passions, and made men more 
humane than they were before the christian era ; and I 
ask you if it is not a fact that the modern system of mar- 
riage is to be credited to Christianity. 

In the Roman Empire the ancient custom still prevailed 
of exposing to death children who were not wanted or who 
were considered feeble. We know that the christians op- 
posed this custom and finally eradicated it, and we know 
that they opposed other barbarisms of that age and suffered 
for their opposition. In the dark years after the destruc- 
tion of the Roman Empire, Europe was half savage, and 
was governed by the feudal system, which was a species of 
anarchy, and took for granted that every man was a mur- 
derer and a robber, and that every neighborhood was at 
war. We know to what a pass assassination had come. 
But is it not a fact that Christianity was the mitigating 
influence of that period. True it is that popes and bishops 
were sometimes the worst assassins of all, that they cut out 
the tongues of their rivals and blinded them, and made the 
title of their office another name for immorality. But is 
it not a fact, attested and admitted in every history ever 
written, that christians opposed these evils, that in spite 
of the wickedness of ecclesiastics, Christianity was on the 
whole the civilizing influence of the time, and that the 
church, though bigoted, intolerant, and cruel, was con- 
tinually declaring for a day, or a series of days, what was 
called a truce of God, a time when all quarrels were off, 
and men were persuaded not to kill. 



15 

The law of one husband and one wife was well known to 
the ancient world, but the enforcement of it was defective. 
In the Roman Empire the marriage ceremonies were ne- 
glected ; the two people simply went and lived with each 
other. Divorce was equally easy and practically free ; it 
could be obtained whenever it was wanted. But it is need- 
less to describe this state of affairs and the consequent cor- 
ruption ; for we have all read it in Gibbon. He was no 
great friend of Christianity ; but, nevertheless, he says, 
"The dignity of marriage was restored by the christians." 
And on another page he says, ' ' The christian princes were 
the first who specified the just causes of divorce." It is to 
Christianity that we owe the refining influences and the 
safeguards which now surround family life, and make it 
the best influence in our civilization. 

This great fact of the elevation of marriage cannot be 
affected by such a passage as the following from one of your 
articles: 

u So with the institution of polygamy. If anything on 
earth is immoral, that is. If there is anything calculated 
to destroy home, to do away with human love, to blot out 
the idea of family life, to cover the hearthstone with ser- 
pents, it is the institution of polygamy. The Jehovah of 
the Old Testament was a believer in that institution." 

The above passage is part of some remarks made by you 
on the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. You say 
that christians maintain that the morality of the Bible is 
inspired, and then you cite the slavery, the cruel wars of 
extermination, and the polygamy of the Old Testament, to 
show that the morality cannot be inspired. This is hardly 
an accurate way of treating the question of inspiration. 
There are several theories of inspiration of the scriptures. 
Plenary inspiration holds that every word has some sort of 
inspired meaning, and the doctrine of inspiration held by a 
great many is that the Bible is inspired only in a general 
way, as a guide, an example or a warning. Between these 



i6 

two extremes are several other theories. I know not which 
one you intend to attack; but none of them, so far as I 
know, holds that either polygamy or cruel wars of extermi- 
nation are inspired, or to be imitated. Many of the theo- 
ries of inspiration may be irrational ; but, if you intend to 
attack them, I think you are bound to state them accu- 
rately and fairly. 

As to slavery, about which you say so much, it is true 
that it is countenanced in the Bible and has been counte- 
nanced and upheld by christians; and christians have 
countenanced and upheld other things that are wrong. 
They never claim to be perfect. But I call your attention 
to the fact that the slavery that existed in the Roman 
Empire was gradually abolished by the christians, and 
that afterwards, when negro slavery arose, the first regular 
opponents of it in this country were the sect of christians 
called Quakers; and that the abolition of slavery, both in 
England and in America, was advocated by christians, and 
in many instances demanded in the name of Christianity. 
Whether Christ permitted slavery or not, it is undoubtedly 
contrary to the spirit of His teachings. I grant you that 
priests and professional religionists were often opposed to 
the abolition of slavery. They are apt to oppose any sort 
of change. 

But the point to which I want chiefly to call attention in 
the passage I have quoted is this. Let us leave dogmas 
and doctrines, and stick to the great facts of Christianity. 
What difference does it make if the religion of the Jews 
taught polygamy, when it is a notorious fact that Chris- 
tianity has always taught just the contrary ? The Jews 
themselves had given up polygamy before the time of 
Christ. And what difference does it make if many chris- 
tians have believed in the God of the Jews, or thought they 
believed in Him, when they have never adopted His sup- 
posed views on polygamy ? 

You will reply, ' ' Then christians are inconsistent and 
absurd. ' ' 



17 

I grant you that. Religion is full of inconsistency 
and absurdity ; and so is political government, and law 
and medicine, and everything else that is world-wide 
in its application, and has absorbed the interest and 
passions of men ever since the dawn of consciousness. 
Let us be practical and sensible about these things. 
L,et us not take an error more than two thousand years 
old and apply it to modern Christianity, and then by our 
silence imply that Christianity consists of nothing but 
such errors. You cannot judge of a great system by its 
mistakes alone. The American constitution and govern- 
ment are a great blessing; but if we should set out all their 
errors, and keep silent about the rest, they would not appear 
like a blessing; and they would contain more errors than 
we can now see if they were as old as Christianity. 

Of course, there has been a great deal of wild and ridicu- 
lous preaching among christians. But the accomplished 
benefits of Christianity cannot be affected by it. The ac- 
complished benefits cannot be affected by saying that the 
Roman Church burned to death thousands and thousands 
of upright men and women, nor by saying that Protestant 
churches have burned people, nor by saying that Calvin 
burned Servetus because he said that God was everywhere, 
and existed even in the pavement on which he stamped his 
foot. These persecutions are facts, without doubt, and no 
language can describe their atrocity; but when they are 
mentioned I ask to have the merits of Christianity placed 
beside them. I^et us have two columns, if you will, and 
in the one put all the error and evil and all the ridiculous 
doctrines, stated in the strongest language, and in the 
other put all the merits, stated also in vigorous language, 
and I am willing to stand by the result. 

Christianity, you must remember, is a source, an influ- 
ence, a power. It consists of a set of ideas and feelings. 
These have made their way through the world side by side 
with all the absurdity and wickedness of the churches. I 



grant you that if ecclesiastics had their way there would be 
very few of these principles left. They would be smoth- 
ered in arrogance, ambition, ritual, and cant. But since 
the establishment of liberty of conscience and thought, and 
the division of Christendom into sects, this danger has 
been very much lessened. The more liberty men have the 
more truly religious they will be. 

You insist upon taking the past misdeeds of the churches, 
some of them five hundred years old, and applying them to 
the present ; you take the absurdities of one sect of chris- 
tians and apply them to all sects. Is this an accurate way 
of reasoning ? Is it logical ? The only fair way of treating 
such questions, is to consider each error in its own time, 
and place, and church. If you are considering the religi- 
ous folly of the twelfth century, keep it there and set over 
against it the religious wisdom of that century, and show 
how religious thought has advanced and improved since 
that day. Apply, if you like, the Darwinian theory to 
religion : show that religion is an evolution. That is a 
fair method. But you must keep all the links in their 
places and in chronological order. You must not confuse 
the mollusk with the monkey, or the monkey with the 
man ; neither should you abuse the mollusk because he is 
not a monkey, nor the monkey because he is not a man. 
If you are considering the old Presbyterian belief in pre- 
destination, which you dislike so much, keep it where it 
belongs, and do not charge it on all christians or on the 
Church of England, or the Wesleyan Methodists, or any 
other religious body which has expressly and explicity re- 
pudiated it. It is impossible to get an intelligent idea of 
history if you mix up the past with the present, and the 
ideas of one country and one set of people with those of all 
the others. But that is just what you do with religion, 
and religion forms a large part of history and cannot be 
understood unless studied with historical accuracy. Your 
method of intermingling all the centuries and sects of 
Christendom leads only to confusion of thought. 



19 

If you want to attack modern Christianity, attack it as it 
exists in modern times. From my reading of your articles 
I judge that you are not very familiar with modern Chris- 
tianity. Your mind seems to be entirely with the past and 
its mistakes. If you should keep your mind entirely with 
the past of science, you would find it full of mistakes. It is 
only a few hundred years since men of science believed that 
the baser metals could be turned into gold and silver, and 
that there existed such a thing as the elixir of life. Only 
two hundred years ago the phlogiston theory was generally 
accepted. That theory maintained that all combustible 
bodies contained an element called phlogiston, and that 
combustion consisted in getting rid of it. Even Priestly 
believed in phlogiston. 

There are in this country more than a hundred thousand 
congregations of christians, comprised in twenty or thirty 
sects, and including at least forty million people that meet 
every Sunday for the sake of religion. Now do you 
mean to say that all of this preaching and worship every 
Sunday is absurd, and wrong, and injurious? I have 
heard sermons from nearly all the principal sects, and I 
must say I have heard very little absurdity. I have never 
yet heard a sermon on predestination or total depravity, or 
any sermon which made God appear ridiculous, and I think 
those doctrines are now very seldom preached. I have 
heard very few doctrinal sermons based on old errors or 
superstitions. But I have heard multitudes of sermons 
teaching excellent morality, stimulating thought and hold- 
ing out high ideals of life, and you would have the same ex- 
perience if you would take the trouble to study Christianity 
as it now exists, and not as it existed eight hundred years 
ago. The Christianity described in your articles cannot be 
found in modern churches. Most of the doctrines which 
you attack have to be read about in books ; they are no 
longer heard from the lips of the living. 

If you would prove your case that Christianity is an in- 



20 



jury and a check on human happiness and progress, you 
must show that what goes on in the churches every Sun- 
day is positively injurious. But you cannot do that ; you 
cannot show that the hundreth part of it is injurious. 

And now let me give some passages from your writings, 
which I think are samples of the way in which you reason 
about religion. 

First, as to your use of the word church. I object 
to the use of that word in this connection, as in the 
phrase Christian Church. The various sects of Christi- 
anity cannot be ranked in one church. They differ too 
much. The use of the word church leads to vagueness, 
and some of your most glittering generalities are based on 
it. For example, you attack with great fierceness the 
doctrine of total depravity, in order to show the absurdity 
of what you call the church, which you quietly assume to 
be synonymous with Christianity. You say : 

"For many centuries the church has insisted that man 
is totally depraved, that he is naturally wicked, that all of 
his natural desires are contrary to the will of God." 

Now total depravity has never been the belief of all the 
churches. The Church of England has never believed in 
it, neither have the Unitarians, nor the Universalists, nor 
the Quakers, nor the Roman Catholics. Christianity is 
therefore not dependent on that doctrine. When you strike 
it out you are not striking out an elementary principle or 
foundation stone. The Calvinists are the only people who 
have ever believed in total depravity ; it was part of the 
foundation of their belief in the doctrine of predestination 
and election. But even Calvinists are now beginning to 
doubt it. The only general belief among christians which 
approaches anywhere near total depravity is, that every man 
is more or less inclined to evil, and needs the assistance of 
a power outside of himself. Some churches have always 
held this belief. It does not mean that man is utterly cor- 
rupt and cannot even do a good action, which is not also a 



21 



a sin, as the Calvinists used to say. It simply recognizes 
the fact that every man has certain tendencies to evil, a 
fact which no one in his senses will deny. 

This tendency to evil is the basis of the doctrine of the 
atonement. You have spoken of that doctrine with great con- 
tempt, and, as if it depended entirely for its support on the 
story of Adam and Eve and their fall. After remarking 
that Adam and Eve are myths, and the account of creation 
given in Genesis absurd, you say : 

"The Church cannot give up the story of the Garden 
of Eden — the serpent — the fall and the expulsion ; these 
must be defended, because they are vital. Without these 
absurdities the system known as Christianity cannot exist. 
Without the fall the atonement is a non sequitur." 

The doctrine of the atonement may have often been 
based upon the story of Adam and the fall, but I think 
you are mistaken in supposing that story to be vital to it. 
You may cut the story away and banish the memory of it 
if you please, and I think the doctrine will still live. Atone- 
ment is an idea which is very wide-spread in nearly all 
religions. It is not based on any myth or fable ; it is based 
on human consciousness. Every man is conscious of evil 
tendencies, and of his own weakness in resisting them, 
and he usually believes in the existence of a great and 
righteous spirit with whom he can be united only by 
righteousness ; he feels unable to reach such a deity alone; 
he dreads the effect of past sin, and, therefore, he has faith 
in an Atonement, something which will remove the effect 
of sin and put him at one with God. 

I have great admiration foi your power of concise state- 
ment ; but I really do not think you can dispose of the doc- 
trine of the atonement in a short paragraph of less than 
fifty words. If you will examine the history of that doc- 
trine you will find that Christians hold three or four differ- 
ent views on it, that besides these three or four main views, 
every sect has a variation of its own, and that they can all be 



22 



based on the simple fact of man's inclination to sin, with- 
out resorting to the story of the fall or to total depravity. 
IvOoked at from a philosophical point of view, it is more 
likely that the story of the fall arose out of the conscious- 
ness of sin, and the necessity felt for an atonement, than 
that the atonement is dependent on the story of the fall. 

You object to the doctrine of the atonement, because 
you say it holds that Christ died for the sins of the whole 
world, and you say it is foolish to suppose that a just God 
would require the innocent to suffer for the guilty. Well, 
there are christians who agree with' you on that point. 
They say, God could not have intended the innocent to 
suffer for the guilty, and accordingly they work out the 
doctrine of the atonement in another way. Christianity 
is, I think, a larger subject than you suppose. 

In the paragraph above quoted, in speaking of Adam and 
Eve, the serpent and the fall, you say, "Without these ab- 
surdities, the system known as Christianity cannot exist." 
This is another specimen of your way of reasoning. From 
a single point, you at one bound draw a conclusion that 
fills the whole horizon. How any one at all familiar 
with the history or actual condition of Christianity can say 
that it is dependent for its existence on the story of Adam 
and Eve, is beyond me to conceive. Do you suppose that 
Christianity spread over Europe and America by virtue of 
that story ? Do you suppose that christian morality, and 
christian feeling, and christian rules of conduct, are de- 
pendent on that story ? Do you suppose that men devote 
their lives to propagating the ideas of Christianity because 
they are inspired by that story? No; the mainspring of 
Christianity, the gist of Christianity, the motive power of 
Christianity, consists not in stories or absurdities, or 
dogmas or doctrines. It consists in the life and words and 
example of Christ. Have what opinion you will of the 
nature of Christ. Believe with some that He was only a 
man, or with others that He was the Son of God, or with 



23 

others that He was an inspired man, a man with more of the 
divine than any one before or since; have any theory you 
please; but there is no denying the fact of His leadership, 
the fact that He put into the world greater ideas than were 
known before, the fact that His name sustains Christianity 
to this day. It makes no difference what churches or 
priests have done, it makes no difference that the history of 
the churches is full of superstition, humbug and cruelty; it 
makes no difference that the Jehovah of the Old Testament 
is arbitrary and vindictive, an upholder of slavery and 
polygamy, an abettor of murder, robbery and meanness; it 
makes no difference that the Puritans and Presbyterians 
believed in fatalism and total depravity, or that people still 
believe the story of Adam and Eve, or believe that the sun 
stood still for Joshua, or that the world was made in six 
days, or that none but Christians can be saved, or that the 
pope or any church is infallible, or anything else that is 
impossible, unreasonable or foolish. It makes no difference 
that the Church of Rome persecuted men of science and 
attempted to dwarf the human intellect, and is still opposed 
to free inquiry, free speech and free government, or that 
some Protestant churches have opposed by argument the 
progress" of science. All such things as these which com- 
pose your indictment against Christianity I am perfectly 
willing to let stand and admit, for they cannot alter the fact 
of what has been accomplished for civilization simply by the 
knowledge of the character, life and words of Christ. 

If Christianity depended for its life on the doctrines of 
the Trinity, total depravity, inspiration of the bible, fall 
of man, and others which you are fond of attacking, I grant 
you that it would not live long. But I am surprised that 
you do not see that Christianity as it exists in every-day 
life, in deeds of charity, in hospitals, in care of the poor, 
in married life, in self control, in temperance, in refined 
morality, is not the result of these doctrines. Christianity 
is spiritual; it spread, not by doctrines and dogmas, but 



24 

from man to man, from conscience to conscience, in the 
workshop, in the market place, by inward satisfaction and 
experience of its benefits. The doctrine of the Trinity, 
which is so prominent, and Which you so much dislike, is 
not essential to Christianity, It was never heard of until 
the fourth century, Christianity existed without it, and 
flourished abundantly, for four hundred years. So, also, of 
the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. The books 
contained in the Bible were not collected together until the 
third century, and it was not decided until then what docu- 
ments were inspired and what were not. Remember that 
when you deal with Christianity you are dealing with a 
feeling, an inspiration, an idea, and an example, which, as 
a matter of fact, we can see to be a stupendous influence, 
but which cannot be put into a statement or code. 

Doctrines, dogmas and churches are attempts to express 
certain opinions about Christianity, either for the sake of 
discipline and organization, or for the sake of policy and 
convenience, and sometimes for the sake of ambition and 
pride. 

Christianity cannot be reduced to a logical system, per- 
fect in all its parts, and likely to perish if some of the parts 
are torn away. Christianity is a spiritual influence; you 
cannot kill it by cutting off an arm or a leg. The numer- 
ous sects, the strange, conflicting doctrines, and yet the 
steady persistence of certain main ideas through them all, 
show what Christianity is. The frightful results which 
come from any attempt to hold people to any one opinion 
about Christianity also show what it is. 

You have devoted one of your articles to proving that 
Christianity is a " divided household of faith " as if that 
was an argument against it. You might have stated the 
case a great deal stronger. Not only have christians 
changed their opinions in the course of centuries ; but at 
the present time they are divided into sects, each one of 
which is opposed to all the others ; and if you examine some 



25 

of the sects closely, you will often find it difficult to get 
two people to agree on the doctrine of the sect to which 
they both belong. The Church of England contains and 
allows almost every form of opinion from what practically 
borders on unitarianism to high church ritualism bordering 
on the superstitions of Rome. The Methodists, the largest 
sect in the United States are divided into several sub-sects. 
The Whitefield Methodists believe in predestination and 
election, the Wesleyan Methodists believe in free will. 
The Baptists are also divided into four or five sub-sects ; 
some are for predestination, others for free will, and so on. 
The Roman Catholics who make the greatest efforts at 
unity and uniformity, have nevertheless constantly changed, 
and always contained divisions and differences. Only 
lately they were divided into two parties, the Ultramon- 
tanes and the Gallicans, who opposed each other on two 
vital questions, whether infallibility rested in the Pope or 
in the ecumenical council, and whether the church was 
superior to the state or subject to it. There is no unity of 
doctrine or discipline among christians, and yet each de- 
nomination claims it. Now if Christianity depended on 
doctrine or consistent opinion, as you suppose, how could 
it live and flourish in such a state of affairs ? Churches 
and sects are necessary and will always exist, for there 
must be some practical method of administering religion. 
But Christianity laughs at churches and dogmas, and moves 
through them as a steamer cuts her way against the wind 
and through the multitudinous seas . 

I could easily fill this pamphlet with instances of the way 
in which you jump to enormous conclusions, state a part of 
a system so as to condemn the whole, and of the strange 
language in which you describe christian belief. But I 
shall cite only one more passage. You say: 

" Christianity teaches not simply the immortality of the 
soul — not simply the immortality of joy — but it teaches the 
immortality of pain, the eternity of sorrow. It insists 



26 

that evil, that wickedness, that immorality, and that every 
form of vice are and must be perpetuated forever. It be- 
lieves in immortal convicts, in eternal imprisonment, and 
in a world of unending pain. It has a serpent for every 
breast and a curse for nearly every soul. This doctrine is 
called the dearest hope of the human heart, and he who 
attacks it is denounced as the most infamous of men." 

In this passage you are aiming at the doctrine of eternal 
punishment. But when and where, pray, did any chris- 
tian ever assert "that evil, that wickedness, that immor- 
ality, and that every form of vice are and must be perpet- 
uated forever." The doctrine of eternal punishment as- 
serts that certain people who will not repent and reform, 
will in all probability be punished forever ; but that is not 
asserting that ' ' every form of vice ' ' and wickedness must 
be perpetuated forever. This is a specimen of the twists 
of language you employ. 

At the conclusion of the passage you say, ' ' This doc- 
trine is called the dearest hope of the human heart." Now, 
I would like to know, when any christian, or when any- 
body but you, ever called the doctrine of eternal punish- 
ment the dearest hope of the human heart. The christian's 
hope of being saved, if he leads an upright life, has often 
been called the dearest hope of the human heart, and your 
taking of this idea and twisting it into the doctrine of 
eternal punishment, is certainly a most remarkable strate- 
gem. A little further on you do the same thing again, and 
speak of "the hope of eternal pain and the consolation of 
perdition." 

You say in the conclusion of the above passage that he 
who attacks this doctrine of eternal punishment "is de- 
nounced as the most infamous of men." That assertion is 
not, I think, in accordance with fact. There are thousands 
of christians who do not believe in eternal punishment. 
Tillotson and Burnet were against it in England, more 
than two hundred years age ; the L,ollards, Albiginses and 



2 7 

Waldenses were opposed to it ; and it is even said that 
there are passages in the writings of Origen and Chrysostom 
which imply a denial of it, 

Many Christians believe, just as you do, that men will be 
punished for their sins and in exact proportion to the 
degree of guilt, but not eternally. They will be punished 
till the evil taint is destroyed and not for the sake of 
vengeance. Farrar, one of the most distinguished divines 
now in the Church of England, has written one or more 
books and preached numerous sermons against the idea of 
eternal punishment, and yet he holds high honor and posi- 
tion in his native country, is loved and respected, and when 
he came to America, members of all sects flocked to hear 
him lecture. He is the most powerful opponent of eternal 
punishment in the world, and yet I never heard him 
"denounced as the most infamous of men." Really I 
think you ought to find out what Christianity is before you 
begin to attack it. 

I have written in the hope of getting this subject out of 
some of the confusion into which you have hit it with your 
reckless and random blows. The keenness and vigor of 
your mind are, I think, misused. You employ them too 
much in distortion and caricature. I am not one of those 
who go about saying that they wish you were dead, nor do 
I think you are wicked because you ridicule religion. If 
religion cannot stand ridicule, the sooner we are rid of it 
the better. But remember that anything can be made to 
appear ridiculous if held upside down. Washington, or 
Iyincoln, or Emerson, or Milton, or Shakespeare, or any of 
the great and good would look very ridiculous if held in 
the air by their heels. If you want to attack Christianity, 
I ask that you attack it regularly and in order, and I will 
show you what I mean by an orderly attack. 

Begin with Christianity as a revelation. The central 
point of Christianity as a revelation is the divinity of Christ, 
and this point is altogether a question of fact to be proved 



28 

by evidence, or to be abandoned if the evidence is insuffi- 
cient. We have the testamony of christians who were con- 
temporaneous with Christ, and their statements are handed 
down to us in certain documents. They say that they 
heard him assert that he was divine, saw him perform 
miracles, and they also say that he rose from the dead and 
appeared again on earth. The important part is of course 
the resurrection from the dead. If that can be proved the 
rest of the divinity will follow easily enough. Attack 
this point if you like ; show that all the facts alleged in 
support of divinity are very unlikely to have happened, 
that the witnesses are unreliable, that the documents in 
which their testimony is transmitted are open to suspicion, 
But do not let the question be confused with polygamy 
among the Jews, or with the character of the Jewish 
Jehovah, or with what the churches did hundreds of 
years afterwards. Bear in mind that christians do not 
require for themselves that the facts supporting the 
divinity of Christ should be proved beyond a reason- 
able doubt ; all that they require is enough proof to raise 
a hope, enough proof to rouse faith in spite of doubt. 
If you intend to persuade christians who believe in the 
divinity of Christ to give up their belief you must show 
them that their belief is so absolutely unsupported by rea- 
son and fact that their is no room even for hope. 

But let us suppose that you have accomplished this. 
Let us suppose that you have investigated and decided all 
the questions of exegesis, the comparison and history of 
manuscripts, the history of those ages, the conflict of testi- 
mony and all the other difficulties. The hardest part of 
your work is still before you. You will have to answer 
those christians who say, " Very well, we grant you that 
there was no resurrection, that there were no miracles, that 
Christ was not divine in that sense. But from the plain- 
est and admitted facts of his life we see sufficient divinity 
in him to satisfy us. He was unlike any man the world 



29 

has ever heard of. He was better than any man the world 
has ever heard of. He founded the greatest religion. The 
stories about his miracles and resurrection may be inventions 
of credulous followers, but his life and words and influence 
are enough. Call him inspired or a genius or any name 
you like. But if the word divine means God-like then he 
was divine." You will find some difficulty I think in con- 
futing these christians. 

But suppose you have reduced Christ to the dimensions 
of an ordinary man. A man of luck, of accident, or of des- 
tiny I suppose you will call him. Or perhaps you will call 
him an imposter. Then you will still have to account for 
the effect of his influence ; you will have to explain how 
it was that an imposter introduced into the world new ideas 
and noble ideas. You will have to explain why intelligent 
men are still inspired by him, how it happened that such a 
person was the author of the Sermon on the Mount, for I 
believe you admit the beauty and truth of that production. 
You will have to prove that the various forms of Christian- 
ity which are the result of his teaching have been and are a 
positive evil, or that we would be better off without them. 
Do not tell us about cruelties and intolerance and illogical 
dogmas which we agree with you in condemning. Do not 
bother with the conflicting opinions of sects and schools, 
but strike at the result and influence of Christ's work, 
strike right at the heart of Christianity ; that is the 
place to aim ; why waste time chopping off fingers and 
toes. Show us that our religion is useless or an evil in 
every day life, in its practical effect as administered in the 
churches. 

When you have done all this you will, doubtless, have 
succeeded in destroying Christianity. 



LIBRARY OF 



CONGRESS 



019 971 820 4 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 971 820 4 



